


Consortium Downsizing

by ophelia_interrupted



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Humor, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophelia_interrupted/pseuds/ophelia_interrupted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Consortium is dead broke.</p>
<p>It's hard raising money when you're evil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consortium Downsizing

The Well-Manicured Man hated the Consortium's accountant. The accountant had formerly been known as Mr. Z, but then he got married and the PC git hyphenated his name, so he now insisted on being called Mr. Z-Q. The Well-Manicured Man resisted his impulse to have him killed, because competent evil accountants were hard to come by.

This morning, Z-Q came in with a huge easel and several cardboard spreadsheets. The Consortium members sat at a long, polished table and stirred their tea, except for the Cigarette Smoking Man, who had a can of Pepsi, the vulgar pig.

"I'm afraid the news for this quarter is bad," Z-Q said. "We've lost our grant from the National Endowment for Conspiracies, due to government cutbacks."

"Well, whose fault is that? Who wrote the grant proposal?" the Well Manicured Man demanded.

"You did sir," said Z-Q. "You wrote-let me see here," he examined a piece of paper attached to a clipboard, "'Renew our grant or we'll do away with you horribly. --Sincerely, Us.'"

"Well, what was wrong with that?" the Well Manicured Man said.

"Nothing, it's just that Congress decided to re-route all funding to Head Start programs, NASA and preserving the wetlands," said Z-Q.

"You're joking," said the First Elder.

"Yes, actually I am. Congress voted to give themselves a million dollar raise per person, then instituted fifteen minute term limitations so they could all retire and move to Florida," said Z-Q. "That's it for the government budget this year."

"Well, there are other governments," the First Elder said, darkly.

"No, the World Bank collapsed on Tuesday. They added a polygraph test to their borrowing requirements, and as soon as it became apparent that no one in the world planned on paying any of their loans back, the economy of the whole world collapsed," Z-Q said.

"So you're telling us the entire human race is dead broke," The Well Manicured Man said.

"I'm afraid so," said Z-Q. "But in the plus column, I've come up with some innovative ideas for reducing operating costs." He gave them all his shiny-teeth smile. The Well Manicured Man privately suspected that the teeth were plastic.

"Such as what?" he asked.

"Well, is it really necessary that we deny everything? What if we denied about 65%, and then had the rest evaded on a contract-work basis," said Z-Q.

"Well what kind of slogan is that?" the Well Manicured Man demanded. "'Deny 65% and Evade the Rest on a Contract Work Basis?' We'd lose all credibility."

"We could try consolidating Denials and Evasions under one department," the First Elder suggested. "It would mean liquidating--I mean, letting some personnel go."

"Well, which do you want to liquidate? Denials or Evasions?" the Well Manicured Man asked.

"I could call Fred in Denials and ask him to justify his existence," the First Elder said. He clapped his hands and Krycek crawled into the room with a telephone taped to his back. The First Elder punched in the number for Denials.

"Hello?" came a voice on the other end.

"Hello, is this Fred?"

"No, it is not."

"Well, I'm looking for Fred in the Denial Department."

"This is not the Denial Department, I am not Fred. We are not having this conversation."

"Well, we've been talking about making some cutbacks. I wanted to ask Fred to convince us of the importance of his department," the First Elder said.

"Non-Fred's nonexistent department is of no importance to the nobody who is not calling me," said the other man.

"Boy, he's good," the First Elder said, holding his hand over the mouthpiece. "All right, never mind. Have a good day."

"This not-person acknowledges the nonexistence of a day, good or non-good," said the other man, who then hung up.

"Well, now we're back to where we started," said the Well Manicured Man.

"We could have a garage sale, auctioning off used UFO parts and things," said Krycek, from under the table. The First Elder kicked him.

"Oh, shut up," he said.

"We could have a televised fund drive," suggested the Cigarette Smoking Man. "We could abduct a well known public figure, such as Bart Simpson, and then threaten to execute him on live television unless we raise a certain amount of money."

"We could sell advertising space on the sides of our black vans," said the First Elder.

"I could go to Michigan, sneak into a convenience store, and return this Pepsi can for a ten-cent deposit refund, when actually I only paid a five cent deposit here in New York!" the Cigarette Smoking Man exclaimed.

"Everybody look under the couch cushions for change," said the Well Manicured Man. Ten minutes later, they had three dollars in change, a TV remote control, one of those ice-pick alien killing things, and a button.

"That wasn't very helpful," said the Well Manicured Man.

"Can I have the ice pick?" Krycek asked.

"Shut up!!" everyone else shouted.

"Well, it looks like we'll just have to have a garage sale," said the Well Manicured man, with resignation.

"What a good idea, sir," said Z-Q.

"Hey!" said Krycek.

\--A few days later--

The Well Manicured Man looked disapprovingly at the heap of junk lined up along the New York street. "The alien clone generation tanks aren't selling," he said.

"Maybe if you lowered the price again," said the Cigarette Smoking man, who used a grease pencil to scribble out "$2.00 ea." on one of the tanks and replaced it with ".50 ea."

Some of the alien craft propulsion units had gone, but they'd had to mark the vintage nuclear warhead stock down to "Make Us an Offer." Some guys from Iran had bought a crate of them for five bucks. No one seemed to want the slightly used, Human DNA cataloging software, either.

"Maybe if you gave out free cookies?" suggested Krycek, still under the table.

Everybody kicked him again, but the Well Manicured Man said, "Oh, we may as well give it a try."

The Cigarette Smoking Man baked six dozen chocolate chip cookies.

Suddenly, their garage sale table was thronged with people who wanted to eat them. One old granny said, "Oh, I used to make these. The secret is in the--"

"Shut up!!" the Cigarette Smoking Man shouted, and promptly shot her.

During the appalled silence that followed, he looked a little embarrassed and said, "Sorry."

Within six months, they were running the Consortium Fresh-Baked Cookie and Protection Service. Black vans with photos of cookies on the sides would prowl along the streets, then Men in Black would leap out, grab unsuspecting pedestrians and force them to buy cookies at gunpoint. People began living in fear of baked goods.

America lost weight. The Consortium got money. The aliens took over the world in a few years, but who cares.

Our Villains lived evilly ever after.

-End-


End file.
